stop oil are industry plants they were founded by the daughter of an oil exec they’re designed to make the real people protesting look crazy by lumping them in
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Stop_Oil
I can’t find any evidence that they were founded by her but she did help found the climate action fund which has donated a large amount of money to them as well as Extinction Rebellion
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aileen_Getty
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_Emergency_Fund
I think she’s probably genuine but that’s also besides the point. Whether she has alternative motives or not all that really matters is whether the activism is helping or hurting
So the meme is in agreement that defacing Stonehenge as a protest was pointless?
There are ways to get attention for a cause without defacing one of the seven wonders of the world. Next time spray that cornstarch in BP’s corporate parking lot.
The fact that you missed the Stonehenge under water worries me.
I saw it. That implies that spraying cornstarch won’t change anything. Think about it.
THEN WHAT FUCKING WILL CHANGE ANYTHING
Because this is the only thing that gets people like you to even talk about this.
edit: I want to be clear that I don’t care if it’s rude or uncivil to talk to people about this like this, I will do it again and again and again and I support efforts to be annoying about it, because at this point it’s all we have left to maybe, potentially, get enough people angry enough that someone, somewhere does something. Anything
You’re all making your frowny faces and saying “This is counter-productive” and you’re simply not getting it.
If through some magical means we were to learn that nuking Manhattan would somehow lower global temperatures, then we would need to do that, just up and vaporize 1.6 million people. It would STILL be the ethically superior action to take if it magically worked. Because in the next century billions of people may die.
If we learned that filling the Grand Canyon with concrete would get companies to stop producing carbon waste and get people to accept inconveniences like electric cars and paper straws without whinging like a wounded toddler, then yes, line up those cement mixers.
When it comes to the trolly problem, you’re all not even looking at the right tracks if you’re so upset about incivility or annoyances when it comes to climate activism. If anyone is left to do it, one day they will erect statues of these kids throwing soup at paintings and coloring rocks.
I know this is nitpicking but… I’d say the biggest issue with electric car now is the pricing. What do you think poor people should do?
We should ride bicycles and public transit, and the government should be investing in rail and walkability for us
Exactly what I thought, we need less cars.
You need to learn to become compelling if you want to be heard. Annoying people will get you ignored, and likely discredited.
Also, you know nothing about me.
Not clicking, not looking, this isn’t even about you, this is bigger than you. Every individual needs to get a lot better about getting their head out of their own ass.
Man, the way this channels a mix of “it is the children who are wrong” and sheer impotence is hitting me hard. I mean, it really explains so much about modern activism.
I attended my first protest thirty years ago. Modern activists need to be more clever. Learn the law so you know how to circumvent it. Turning things up to 11 just gets you discredited as “radicals” in the media. It’s a fruitless attempt at awareness that will just get you charged.
Turning things up to 11 just gets you discredited as “radicals” in the media.
Radicals need to exist in order to make the less-radical activists look reasonable by comparison. Otherwise they just get painted as radical no matter how milquetoast their protest is, and the Overton window moves away from their cause.
How old were you back then? These kids awake to a world fucked up by the older generation. They try to take every step that comes to their mind to steer away from desaster. What is your personal input in that task? Criticism. Well done. Go out and teach them, if you’re so clever.
Oh, spare me that rhetroric. Protestors in the 90s and especially the 2000s felt just as disenfranchised. That’s how you end up protesting in the first place. And those were the nice ones. The stories my parents could tell you about the 60s and 70s.
It’s not like “don’t be an idiot” is a struggle only now. I was in protests back in a different millenium where the smart ones were already standing in front of cops and bank windows to stop the idiots from throwing rocks at them and spoiling the whole thing.
The despondent “you just don’t get it” online discourse is pretty new, though.
You get it. I saw some bad shit at the Oil Wars and Occupy protests.
It’s all one action. We need to keep it together for the clarity of message. Even more now in some states where one bad actor won’t just end a protest, but get everyone charged.
And beyond getting charged it’s the optics. I am from a place where you’re less likely to get shot by police and where serious charges are not likely to come from protesting (at least back then, it has gotten worse). But even then the marching orders were that if cops charge or disrupt the protest that’s good optics, if the protestors riot unprompted that’s bad optics, which should be pretty straightforward to understand.
Absolutely. The people you need to reach are outside of the movement. Performative radicalism is immediately discredited by your target audience, and only praised by those who are already supporters of the cause.
